Two Accounts from the Knife Attack at Pennsylvania's Franklin Regional High School

Franklin Regional seniors Christian Bruns and Jacob Crouch talk about the moments of panic after the knife attack this morning.

Christian Bruns is a senior at Franklin Regional High School in Pennsylvania, where a student is said to have injured 20 students in a knife attack. Bruns was walking into school when the attack started. Here, he describes the scene shortly after the attack:

I was getting to school later than usual — about 7:18 or so — and the first thing I saw when I pulled into the senior parking lot was two kids running.

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I didn't think much of it, until I saw a larger group of maybe 10 kids, and the look on their faces was one of terror. My girlfriend and I weren't sure what was going on, so we asked the people in the parking spots next to us. They said someone was stabbed in the school, and that we should stay in our cars.

The parking lot was filled with confused seniors and other kids trying to get into their vehicles. That was the first time that someone mentioned that someone had been not just stabbed, but shot. Nobody was actually shot, but it added another element to the scare. We were all sitting ducks in a parking lot to a kid with a gun.

Everybody was on their phones, calling their parents or siblings. I know [my friend] Roger was trying to find his sister in the shuffle. Kids were still sprinting outside the school.

Around that time, which was maybe by 7:21, I had heard the fire alarm, which was pulled by a kid who I now realize was also sliced with the knife. The teachers came out and told all of the students to make our way to the middle school, and kids who had tried to leave were blocked by police and told to also make their way to the middle school.

Once we were in the middle school gym, everyone was trying to figure out what happened. The entire school was in shock.

The teachers were finding out about what had happened from the students, which made for a bad situation. Many kids knew people who had been victims, and that the teachers weren't able to give us any info, so it put us into a more panicked state.

After everyone was organized, we all began to flock to social media. We saw Good Morning America, CNN, ABC, and all other news outlets reporting on what happened. Some kids — when it was revealed that their siblings were the ones involved — were removed from the main gymnasium. We slowly found out what had happened due to group messages and people who knew a slight part of the puzzle, and eventually figured out a short list of heroes, victims, and the villain.

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The gym was very frenzied. Some people didn't know anyone involved and were carefree about it. Others were angry. Others were depressed that their friends were victims of the crime.

The entire thing is more like a blur now. The majority of events happened in little over half an hour.

Senior Jacob Crouch was walking into school when the attack started. Here's his account:

I was walking up the steps in the front of the school when I saw kids running out of the library. One kid ran down the steps I was on, and everyone looked confused. He said there was someone stabbing people in the school.

I turned back around to a horde of kids running towards me and out of the school. Then the fire alarm went off, and I didn't know what to do when people started running out. Everyone was standing in the parking lot in confusion. Some were injured, others were just trying to figure out what is going on.

There were people with cuts walking around asking for help, holding their wounds. There was one in particular I remember. He was stabbed in the side, lying on the ground bleeding badly. There was a woman screaming for the nurse or a walkie-talkie while putting pressure on his injury. There was a lot of confusion. A lot of people were crying and on their cell phones. A couple of kids who were trained emergency workers were running around grabbing first aid equipment. Eventually someone herded us into the stadium. Everyone there was waiting to be told what to do.

I haven't talked to anyone who saw it start but I've talked to people who saw the blood all over the cafeteria and halls. They said it was just panic inside once the fire alarm was pulled.

The police arrived a couple of minutes after and they were focused on the school. The staff sent us to an elementary school on the same campus where we had to wait until our parents picked us up, since our cars were in the school parking lot.

I don't know what it's going to be like going back. From what I've heard, school is cancelled for at least the rest of the week. Some of the people who were injured were in my classes — and, from what I've heard, quite seriously. I think they will up the security a ton and have counseling available. I don't know how the school will try to proceed.